from the Nilsens

1. Word Play in Roald Dahl’s The BFG:
A Study in Schemes and Tropes
By Don and Alleen Nilsen

2. Schemes vs. Tropes
Schemes are superficial.
Schemes are the language-play devices
that relate to sounds and spellings.
Alliteration, Assonance, Cacography,
Eye Rhyme, and Slant Rhyme are
examples of schemes.
Tropes are meaningful.
Tropes are the language-play devices
that relate to meanings.
Cacophony, Double Entendre, Euphony,
Hyperbole, Irony, Metaphor, Metonymy
Sound and Visual Imagery, and
Understatement are examples of tropes.

3. ALLITERATION (Repetition of
Consonants):
The giants have such names as The
Childchewer, The Gizardgulper, The
MaidMasher, The Bloodbottler and The
Butcher Boy.
In the book, girls’ schools are called
“gigglehouses,” and boys’ schools are
called “boggleboxes.”

4. ASSONANCE (Repetition of Vowel Sounds)
Dahl uses such words as scotch-hopper
and wraprascal.
To the BFG, “Words is oh such a twitch-
tickling problem to me all my life.”
BFG describes a dream as a
“winksquiffler,” but then said,
“It’s…it’s…it’s…it’s even better. It’s a
phizzwizard! It’s a golden phizzwizard!”
BFG also talks about the
“bogrotting” night mares that
result from having
“trogglehumper” dreams.
The opposite of the
“trogglehumper” dream is the
“phizzwizard” dream

5. BFG Storing and Delivering Dreams

6. CACOPHONY (Unpleasant Meanings)
The giants have such
cacophonous names as The
Fleshlumpeater, The
Bonecruncher, The Manhugger
and The Meatdripper.
The snozzcumber is also
cacophonous.
it’s sickable! It’s rotsome! It’s
maggotwise!
Whizzpoppers are also a bit
cacophonous.

7. BFG Doesn’t Eat Human Beans.
He eats Snozzcumbers and drinks Frobscottle.

8. The Cacophony of “Trogglehumpers”
Sophie cried, “But it’s…it’s
horrible! It’s jumping about!
It wants to get out.”
“That’s because it’s a
troggleuhumper” said the
BFG.
It’s a nightmare.”
“A dream where you is seeing
little chiddlers being eaten is
about the most frightsome
trogglehumping dream you
can get.
It’s a kicksy bogthumper.
It’s a whoppsy grobswitcher.”

9. CLIPPINGS
The Pictures Are of Jack, the Beanstalk and the Giant
Human beings are called human beans.
This gives a special meaning to the story
of “Jack and the Bean Stalk,”
which is, of course, a story about a child
and a giant.
In talking about his cave, the BFG says,
“There is no human beans or stringy
beans or jelly beans or any other beans
in there.”

10. Deference to Royalty
When the BFG meets the Queen, he
addresses her as follows:
“Oh, Magester! Oh, Queen! Oh
Monacher! Oh, Golden Sovereign! Oh,
Ruler! Oh, Ruler of Straight Lines!”
This is reminiscent of when Bilbo
Baggins meets the Dragon, Smaug, in J.
R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
In the picture, Smaug is saying, “You
have nice manners for a thief and a liar.”

11. EUPHONY (Pleasant Meanings):
Frobscottle is described as delumptious
and fizzy.
BFG says, “Whizpopping is a sign of
happiness. It is music in our ears!”
“A look of absolute ecstasy began to
spread over his long wrinkly face. Then
suddenly the heavens opened and he let
fly with a series of the loudest and
rudest noises Sophie had ever heard in
her life…. The force of the explosions
actually lifted the enormous giant clear
off his feet, like a rocket.”

12. The Euphony of the “Phizzwizard” Dream
This is what Sophie saw when she
looked into the jar containing a
“phizzwizard” dream:
“She saw the faint translucent outline of
something about the size of a hen’s egg.
There was just a touch of colour in it, a
pale sea-green, soft and shimmering and
very beautiful.
There it lay, this small oblong sea-green
jellyfish thing…pulsing gently…as though
it were breathing.”

13. Foreshadowing is displayed in the
planning of the Queen’s dream.
Sophie and The BFG make the
following plan: “I want the
Queen to dream that nine
disgusting giants, each one
about fifty feet tall, are galloping
to England in the night.
Let her dream they will be
reaching into the bedroom
windows and pulling the little
boys and girls out of their beds.
In her dream there is a Big
Friendly Giant who can tell
her where all those beasts are
living…,
so that she can send her
soldiers and her armies to
capture them once and for
all.”

14. Foreshadowing: The Queen’s Dream
When the Queen was having a
nightmare, she said,
“Oh no! No! Don’t
—Someone stop them!
--Don’t let them do it!
--I can’t bear it!
--Oh please stop them!
--it’s horrible!
--Oh, it’s ghastlyl!
--No! No! No!....”
Later, when the Queen read the
news in The Times she said that
was exactly what she had
dreamed.
She had even dreamed about
Sophie sitting on her window
sill,
And about the giant who had
placed her there.

15. The Queen’s maid saw a little girl sitting in the window.
The Queen also saw her:
The Queen “simply sat there staring wide eyed and
white-faced at the small girl who was perched on her
window-sill in a nightie. Sophie was petrified.”
The Queen had also dreamed all of the details of the
story in The Times:
“Eighteen girls vanish mysteriously from their beds at
Roedean School!
Fourteen boys disappeared from Eaton! Bones are
found underneath dormitory windows!”

16. HYPERBOLE (Exaggeration)
BFG is talking about his big ears:
“I is hearing the footsteps of a ladybird
as she goes walking across a leaf.”
“I is hearing the little ants chittering to
each other as they scuddle around in the
soil.”
“One of the biggest chatbags is the
cattlepiddlers.”
“They is argying all the time about who
is going to be the prettiest butteryfly.”

17. The Hyperbole of “Giant Country”
They were using an Atlas to help them find giant country.
At the end of the Atlas there were two blank pages.
Pointing to a spot on one of these blank pages the BFG said, “So now we must be
somewhere here.”
What they thought was the firing of guns turned out to be the snoring of giants.

18. The Hyperbole of the Queen’s Breakfast
“By gumdrops!” he cried. “What a
spliffling shoppsy room we is in! It is so
gigantuous I is needing bicirculers and
telescoops to see what is going on at the
other end.”
For the breakfast, Mr. Tibbs, the Butler,
multiplied everything by four. Two
breakfast eggs became eight. Four
rashers of bacon became sixteen. Three
pieces of toast became twelve.
For knives, forks and spoons, they used
a garden fork, a spade, and a sword that
was hanging on the wall.

19. Why Huge Ears are Important in Dream Catching
“A dream” he said,
“as it goes whiffling
through the night air,
is making a tiny little
buzzing-humming
noise.”
“But this little buzzy-
hum is so silvery
soft, it is impossible
for a human bean to
be hearing it.”

20. Hyperbole and Understatement
BFG is four times as big as a human
bean.
Sophie is four times as small as an adult
human bean.
But all of the other giants call BFG the
runt.
Because BFG is much smaller than any
of the other giants.

21. Giants at Play
BFG is the “runt” of all of the giants.
Because of this, they have fun throwing
BFG from giant to giant.
Manhugger caught him and threw him
to Bonecruncher, who caught him and
threw him to Childchewer.
“And so it went on. The giants were
playing ball with the BFG, vying with
each other to see who could throw him
the highest.”

22. IRONY:
In Coke and Pepsi, the bubbles rise to the top.
This causes people to burp.
But in the frobscottle that the BFG drinks, the bubbles flow downward rather than upward;
therefore, instead of causing burps, it causes whizpopping.

23. The Irony of Giants Being More Civilized than Human Beans
Sophie tells the BFG that it is very
uncivilized for Giants to be eating
human beans—especially children.
But BFG says that giants don’t eat other
giants.
And BFG adds that giants don’t kill other
giants, “but human beans is squishing
each other all the time.”
“They is shootling guns and going up in
aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each
other’s heads.”
Sophy countered by saying “I think it’s
rotten that those foul giants should go
off every night to eat humans.
Humans have never done them any
harm.”
BFG countered this by saying, “That is
what the little piggy-wig is saying every
day.
He is saying, ‘I has never done any harm
to the human bean so why should he be
eating me?’”

24. Leit Motif (a phrase, sound or behavior that is
associated with a particular character)
In Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a
particular musical phrase is associated
with each of the chracters—Peter, the
grandfather, the bird, the wolf, etc.
In Wagner’s Ring Cycle a particular
musical phrase is associated with the
Valkyries as they come to take the
wounded warriors off to Val Halla.
In Star Wars a particular musical phrase
is associated with Darth Vader.
Very often when the BFG says
something controversial to Sophie he
asks her, “Is I right, or Is I left?”
And she responds, “Right!”

25. METATHESIS (Reversing the order of words or sounds)
This is a Leit Motif for The BFG
“You is welcome to search my cave from
frack to bunt. You can go looking into
every crook and nanny.”
BFG also uses the term “snappy
whippers” instead of “whipper
snappers.”
Instead of saying “every now and then,”
BFG says, “every then and now.”
Sophie was reading Nicholas Nickleby.
BFG assumed that the book was written
by Dahl’s Chickens.

26. METONYMY (Word Association)
When the giants eat “human beans,”
the people from Turkey taste like turkey,
the people from Greece are greasy. The
people from Panama taste like hats, and
the people from Wales have a fishy taste
(like whales).
The people from Chile taste either like
chile beans or like chilly beans.

27. Mondegreens (Incorrect Word-Breaking or Phrase-Breaking)
Two lines of a famous Scottish poem
read as follows:
“They ha slain the Earl of Murray
And they laid him on the green.”
This last line is mis-interpreted as, “and
the lady Mondegreen.”
Similarly, the BFG offers “a sistance” to
the Queen, and talks about “Mrs. Sippi,”
and “Miss Souri.”

28. Sound Imagery
The BFG failed to see the enormous
crystal chandelier in the Queen’s
Ballroom.
“Crash went his head right into the
chandelier.
A shower of glass fell upon the poor
BFG. ‘Gunghummers and
bogswinkles!’”

29. More Sound Imagery
“Just then, there came a tremendous noise of galloping
feet from outside the cave. ‘What’s that?’ Sophie
cried.
“That is all the giants zippfuzzing off to another
country to guzzle human beans” the BFG said.
After BFG blew a “trogglehumper” nightmare into the
face of Fleshlumpeater, one of his flailing fists hit the
still-fast-asleep Meatdripping Giant, who thrashed his
legs to kick the snoring Gizzardgulping Giant.”
Both the injured giants woke up and began to fight.

30. Squishy Language (Language on the Slant)
The BFG is always using the wrong
words.
But the BFG’s words are funny, and they
are suggestive.
The BFG explains why it is important for
him to hide from human beans:
“They would be putting me into the zoo
or the bunkumhouse with all those
squiggling hippodumplings and
crocadowndillies.”

31. More Squishy Language
The BFG continues,
“If I do, they will be putting me in the
zoo with all the jiggyraffes and
cattypiddlers.”
BFG continues, “Grown-up human beans
is not famous for their kindnesses.
They is all squifflerotters and
grinksludgers.”
BFG said, “I is telling you once before
that I is never having a chance to go to
school.
I is full of mistakes.
They is not my fault.
I do my best.”

32. Taste and Smell Imagery
and Analogy (Similarity) of Processes
Mixing dreams is like mixing a
cake.
“If you is putting the right
amounts of all the different
things into it, you is making a
cake come out any way you
want, sugary, splongy, curranty,
Christmassy or grobswitchy.”
It is the same with dreams.”

33. The Visual and Sound Imagery of the Giants
What Sophie Saw and Heard
“In the light of the moon, she
saw all nine of those
monstrous half-naked brutes
thundering across the
landscape together.
They were galloping in a pack,
their necks craned forward,
their arms bent at the elbows,
and worst of all, their
stomachs bulging.
The strides they took were
incredible.
Their speed was unbelievable.
Their feet pounded and
thundered on the ground and
left a great sheet of dust
behind them.”

34. The Visual and Sound Imagery of Mixing Dreams
BFG had a gigantic egg-beater.
“It was one of those that has a handle
which you turn, and down below there
are a lot of overlapping blades that go
whizzing around.”
“Flashes of green and blue exploded
inside the jar. The dreams were being
whisked into a sea-green froth.”
“Quite slowly, the topmost bubble rose
up through the neck of the jar and
floated away.
A second one followed. Then a third
and a fourth.
Soon the cave was filled with hundreds
of beautifully coloured bubbles, all
drifting gently through the air.

35. The Visual, Sound and Smell Imagery
of Nine Sleeping Giants
“They looked even more grotesque now
than when they were awake.
Sprawled out across the yellow plain,
they covered an area about the size of a
football field.
Most of them were lying on their backs
with their enormous mouths wide open,
and they were snoring like foghorns.
The noise was awful.”
Sophie described Fleshlumpeater’s face
as follows:
“Every now and again a big bubble of
spit formed between his two open lips…
and then it would burst with a splash
and cover his face with saliva.”

36. Zeugma (Intentional Faulty Parallelism)
“Then out he came!
Twenty-four feet tall, wearing
his black cloak with the grace
of a nobleman, still carrying
his long trumpet in one hand,
he strode magnificently across
the Palace lawn toward the
window.”
“The maid screamed.”
“The Queen gasped.”
“Sophie waved.”

37. In Conclusion, The BFG is an Autobiography
With the Queen’s help, the BFG learned
how to read…, and how to write.
And he wrote a book, but he was too
modest to put his name on it.
“But where, you might ask, is this book
that the BFG wrote?”
“It’s right here.”
“You’ve just finished reading it.”